The UFCW charges that Wal-Mart workers aren’t paid enough, and if only they were able to take dues payments out of each worker’s paycheck, they could drive those wages upward.

In the maelstrom of the shutdown, a debt-ceiling suicide attempt and the cutting off of nutrition support for poor people by the Congress, it's clear that America's political class has unbounded belief in national stability.

This Friday, Nov. 1, America will learn the latest monthly jobs report news, which will not be good due to the Republican-caused government shutdown.

This Friday, the poorest Americans will learn that their hunger will worsen because their food stamps will be cut unless Congress and the president act.

Tax reform is likely to be one of the hot-button topics in the months ahead as politicians on both sides of the aisle grapple with how to make the federal income tax system flatter, fairer and less complicated.

The tax code itself has been altered, fixed, reformed, flattened, expanded and criticized since it was created in 1913 by constitutional amendment. Now it just may be time to get rid of the income tax altogether as a failed, progressive experiment.